US Debt Downgrade - Jim's Interview on WDEF News Channel 12

The recent downgrade of the U.S. credit rating has state officials and local financial experts talking.

Everyone wants to know what an AA+ rating instead of an AAA rating means for us.

Senator Bob Corker is calling the credit rating downgrade a wake-up call, but will it be a wake-up call for our pocket books?

We caught up with not only Senator Corker, but also a local expert to explain.

Jim Place, a financial expert in Chattanooga, says, "Well, it's as if you look at bad news one day after another. On Saturday your parents who have been married for 35 years call you and say they're getting a divorce. Then, you come in Monday morning and your boss tells you you're fired. Monday evening you're going out to dinner with your girlfriend, and she tells you she's leaving you."

Place says that is what the Standard and Poor's Credit Agency is saying to us, AAA is gone, you are now dating AA+.

Senator Corker weighs in and says, "It's an embarrassment that we as a country, the greatest country in the history of the world, are where we are."

But where do we go from here? Place says the average person will not be seeing a major change anytime soon.

Place adds, "If you indeed carry this out to the Nth degree, interest on your car loans would be more, interest on homes would be more, interest on everything would be more because the world would have deemed that you are less credit worthy."

With the negatives, come the positives, according to Senator Corker.

Senator Corker adds, "I think the positive effect would be to bring greater focus on what we already know has to happen, and that's to get our country's fiscal house in order."

Congressional leaders have a lot of tough decisions ahead of them, like who to put on the deficit reduction panel or super committee.

Corker says he would love to take on that challenge if they wanted him.